Savannah
by Talisman
Summary: Moonlight, magnolias, murder, madness and mystery. Will become NC-17 in the future.
1. 58 Lewis Lane

The impression one recieves when viewing the house on 58 Lewis Lane is one of great sadness. The place seems to heave with it, and when the marsh winds blow through the sturdy columns of the front proch entrance, one can almost hear it. Almost hear it, as if most of the activity is happening above or beneath the listener. Phantom cadence, yes, but we on some level receive the signal and translate it, and it touches us. The salt in the hot wet air that seems to wrap all it touches in a sheen of moisture, the chorus of a thousand tiny frogs- we can _feel_these things- and take comfort in the tangible.  
  
Night grows nigh but we will not have to fear utter darkness this evening, we have a harvest moon to light our way as we move closer to 58 Lewis. Stepping (stepping, yes, reader... do not fear. This time we can learn as much as we like and still live) to the nearest illuminated window, one can detect the smell of old bricks fired before the birth of most people living. Instead of an intrusion upon the natural landscape, the house seems to have earned its right to be considered welcome, and indeed we see vines of wild English ivy making its living up one of the expansive brick chimneys. At its summit perches a whipoorwill bird, silhouetted againt the yellow moon.  
  
Our ears perk at a river of soft sound and we realize this is not related to the unimaginable wealth of wildlife surrounding us, nor a distant shrimp boat at its lonely work in the warm Atlantic. Nor is it a signal from one of those other planes of awareness, above us, below and deep inside us (though, be assured, Reader, they are there).  
  
Back to the window then. Note the indigo blues, deep yellows, oranges and reds of the ornate stained glass. Cast your eyes on the images they make. Sheep in meadows of impossible green graze safely under a pane of pain, the tree of death, hands nailed, beautiful downturned face on the flock. Let your gaze fall ever lower, Reader, to the clear pane below. Closer.  
  
The river of sound is deeper and clearer now and should strike a chord of familiarity deep within. Goldberg Variations. We should not show surprise at this, familiarity surely does not breed contempt. If it does it is of little consequence, for the executor of the notes finds the piece a familar respite.  
  
Look carefully Reader, and let your eyes seek out what they will from the interiors of 58 Lewis.  
  
Astride a simple pine bench Hannibal Lecter MD works the yellowing keys of an ancient upright piano. Dark sleek head bowed, we sense his eyes are closed. He plays by candlelight, and it plays upon his unclothed upper body with a flickering gentleness. The air is comfortable and though modesty bids him to wear a pair of loose cotton pants, the climate of Savannah lends one to less clothing.  
  
Turn away now, Reader. Yes, true, we are in no danger but that should not inspire discourtesy in us. The center of our fascination deserves more, and even as we turn away we know there is sadness within. 58 Lewis knows melancholy, loss, and the passage of time.  
  
But we know something the good Doctor does not. This land is a strange land... a catalyst for blending, where the future's hold is tenuous, and the present lives side by side with the past. The past can come back to haunt you here in beautiful dark Savannah, and Reader, that is not necessarily a bad thing when your past is bound to Clarice Starling.  
  
"Whip-or-willlllll"... easy Reader, we could have expected our feathered observer to call out at least once on such a comely night. Follow its gaze. A comet has streaked the night above the coast, and deep within us in that place of awareness, we know it portends of what was, what is, and will surely be. 


	2. Midnight Rider

Lecter abruptly ceases. The crystal notes of Bach reverberate through the room and up the staircase, dashing themselves against the surfaces. Each note's birth and death is measured in his mind. Lecter is able to calculate the wave measure to a precise degree.   
  
As he savors, his eyes are drawn to the moonlight which is caught and defracted in the stained glass window. Lecter smiles at the synchronicity. His hearing ability enjoys the same advantage of his intelligence quotient and sense of smell. His lids close over his maroon visage. Outside a vital world ebbed and flowed and created its own distinctive music.   
  
Footsteps. So, she comes closer. Rhythmic, they approach. Drawn to their cadence, Lecter rises and pads through his drawing room to one of the back doors of the grand house. He makes no sound.   
  
The door is opened, disturbing a veritable convention of insectia. Lecter steps through the swarm and pauses on the brick steps, his bare feet absorbing the heat still retained from the day's sunlight. She is close enough to smell as well as hear.   
  
And then she comes to him, as pale as a wraith from the cloaking darkness. Lecter steps forward to meet her and whispers her name. Through the wet grass he treads ever closer. The pair pause and regard each other. He turns his head and peers at her, studying the architecture of her sound body, her mane of hair catching the harvest moon in filaments of fire.   
  
"Moonlight and magnolias, indeed," he whispers, and smiles. "Tell me, how do you fancy being done up in leather? Care for a good hard ride?"  
  
Hearing no objection, Lecter makes his way to the stables to procure saddle and bridle for the white mare following him through the wet grass and oak leaves. 


	3. A Night Mare and Nathaniel Bishop

The mare stepped with spirit, perhaps she was aware of and took some pride in her new English saddle and comfortable bit. Her name was Beauty before he aquired her with the house and she was anything but. She had not been properly shod in some time and her mane and tail were knotted terribly. She was aged, Lecter approximated her age to be about twenty.   
  
The owners of 58 Lewis Lane had allowed Beauty to do as she would and spend her days in the sandy grassy section of the property. She had lived there before the previous owners had taken possession of the property. In fact, she had been born there twenty three years ago, as had her mother and her mother before her. Her grandmother many greats removed had been a foal taken from Chincoteague on the whim of a rich rice plantation owner (records would name him Lewis) for his daughter while on a trip up coast. Beauty's cousins still ran wild on the islands of her forebears but no human living knew this and she knew even less about it. Lecter had allowed her to stay. Even to someone quite indifferent to animals as Lecter, he had her needs taken care of as he did the needs of the house. She proved to be quite servicable for midnight jaunts such as this.   
  
Lecter has named her Hannah.  
  
Still barefoot, Lecter is able to feel the powerful workings of the mare's flanks as he guides her more with his legs than with the reins. He closes his eyes as they make their way down the road that looked so unpromising on his first glance but proved to lead to the perfect location. Lecter smiles. Of course, location is _everything_.   
  
This proved true with his hasty departure from Chesapeake.   
  
In 1874 a man named Nathaniel Bishop set out on a canoe trip from Quebec to the Gulf of Mexico.   
  
Bishop departed Quebec, Canada, July 4, 1874, with a single assistant, in a wooden canoe eighteen feet in length, bound for the Gulf of Mexico. It was his intention to follow the natural and artificial connecting watercourses of the continent in the most direct line southward to the gulf coast of Florida. He made this journey to show that it could be done. He arrived at the Gulf of Mexico 2000 miles later.   
Bishop's canoe weighed in at 58 pounds. Though he frequenty lost his way in the myriad of fresh and brackish waterways as he neared the coast, he had with him extremely accurate United States Coast Survey Bureau charts.  
  
Lecter had a handheld GPS and quite a sturdy eighteen foot John boat with three trolling motors. Krendler would not miss it and he had registered a new ID number for it in advance. The flat bottom would give him the advantage when it came to going ashore on the sandy coasts. Beyond all this however, was Lecter's knowledge that it could be done.   
  
And so it was that he came to be in Savannah, passing over the barrier Islands and the more conspicious Carolina breakaways. He had hoped to not be alone on his journey and he supposed he was not. His memory palace abounded with opulence and he could visit when he wished. Self deception, however, is not a part of the Doctor's make up, and he prefers the tangible.  
  
In the case of Clarice Starling, at any rate.   
  
Lecter halts Hannah and turns her around, supposing it is enough of memory lane for one night. The future beckons. He has a bone to pick in Savannah, so to speak. For some years he has known it to be the residence of a certain disident Nazi. One whom has scarred his bones and taken of the blood of his blood. Lecter smiles. Old meat is tough meat but sea water has _such_ a softening effect on flesh. 


	4. The Touch Crackled In His Eyes

Lecter rejoices at the dimensions of his living quarters. While not on the scale of the Capponi Library with its grand lofty ceilings and seemingly endless series of adjoining rooms upon rooms, 58 Lewis is agreeably spacious.   
  
Even such a comparatively small area as the washroom he now occupied was much roomier and comfortable than his cell in the dank stone bowels of the Dungeon. And so quiet, the silence was golden after being so long subjected to the echoing rants of the insane. Lecter supposed he had Clarice to thank in an indirect way, for his farewell to his dark cell and his reintroduction to a less restraining manner of existence. She would not see it the same way, he was sure.   
  
Would she be willing to shepherd that? Perhaps she had already made that decision.  
  
If he were her lamb at all, his sparking cloven hoofs carried a body of pitch wool and knowing, glowing eyes.   
  
These eyes Lecter closes to the spray of lukewarm water raining down on him from above. The water is almost cool, and quite pleasing to him for the most part after his foray into the humid night. He does not worry nor does he regret. Foremost on his mind at the present time is the most disagreeable smell of the water, it being very distinctive to the region with its sulfer tinge.   
  
He would have to make do with the water and also with the soap he used. Preferably he would have special ordered items which would come into such intimate contact with his person but doing so would have been too much of a risk to take.   
  
A wince of pain from Lecter, as he begins washing his left forearm. A clear band of purple bruise marks his wrist, a physical reminder of his last contact with Clarice and the cuff she had placed on him. Lecter could not help but admire the fact that he had been surprised (Agent Starling, you _are_ a naughty girl) and paused to savor it with a small smile as it was a rare occurance.   
  
In the end, Lecter's taste in fine tableware had been his means of escape, as the carbon steel of the German cleaver he used was of a much higher quality than that of the cuffs' chain, and easily broke through a weak link.  
  
How delicious had been her turmoil. He could taste her emotional strain tempered by her fresh bullet wound. The sharp and exotic scent of her mental and emotional upheaval and fresh blood in combination had nearly driven him to distraction. Savory. Her "heart" denouncing her that saving him, destroyer of so many, from Verger's pig farm was monstrous and made her a monster. Lecter knew under that bothersome moral code operated an intellect and degree of rationality to rival anyone's. The part of her which realized the FBI would chew her up and spit her out like so much badly cooked liver. Deep roller against shallow. The part of her which on some level would come to realize that the only lamb which was ever silent for her was this dark, horned and timeless maroon eyed creature who could follow her for a thousand years.   
  
And the kiss.   
  
The kiss that had seared him as the touching of their finger tips had done so long ago in Memphis. The hair on his forearms and the back of his neck had risen and the colors around him had taken on a new vitality when his lips had touched hers. And she had responded, a new scent permeating her aura and affecting him deep within the autonomous centers of his brain. Good enough to eat.  
  
Lecter's reverie was broken by the rapidly ever cooling water. Mingling now with the water's ambience was the scent of his own arousal. Most definitely a more pleasing physical reminder than his bruised wrist.   
  
His bathing complete, Lecter towels himself dry, douses the light and lies down in his bed. Forgoing his usual nightly outfit of pajamas, he enjoys the sensation of the gently circulating air on his skin.  
  
The monster closes his eyes and sleep takes him. His dreams would not be sweet and that night he heard, as Clarice Starling did hundreds of miles away in her own dreams, the screams of the innocent, and of his shepherd. 


	5. He Dreams

Dreams serve as the harbor of our most unimaginable fears and unimaginable joys.   
  
Hannibal Lecter cuts oranges for Clarice Starling who reclines in a copper tub. The firm skin, a vibrant orange, reveals fibrous white and then dripping sweet flesh. Her eyes shine at him purple, but he accepts this, as we all sometimes accept the strange and unfamilar as rote and tried and familiar in our dream worlds.   
  
Piercing her side, an arrow, seeming to jump at her very heartbeat. He knows not to remove it here, no, not here, it could kill her.   
  
He kneels, his hands gripping the tub rim until his knuckles show white with strain. His quick descent has crushed the vegetation below and the scent of coriander and mint hang cloyingly in the air.  
  
Maroon fixates on the purple and we, having a firmer view, watch as a doe walks placidly toward the couple.   
  
He comes to her.   
  
Liquid and complacent brown eyes reflect the approach of Lecter, until he is so close as to distort the image.   
  
He is close enough to smell her. The crisp smell of snow on her red pelt, the scent of her blood coming from her mouth and peculiar ungulate gums, and Lecter knows she has been chewing at thorns, desperate for nourishment in a time and place where none is to be had.  
  
And suddenly as quickly as it had come upon him, the visage of Starling and doe were gone.   
  
Lecter, alone, struggles into wakefulness. 


End file.
